Unit 1 – What is Science

Lesson 4 – Elements

Today is our last lesson in Unit 1, which means next we are moving into our water unit! I am sure you are exhausted from completing the last few lessons (especially the salsa lesson), so I wanted to today to be super easy and do a series of min lessons! Elements are the basis of environmental science and coexist in every aspect of it, so let’s learn them all now. These activities are all small examples in the middle of the lessons. Most of them are simple activities you can do together. 

If you are a teacher and need a way to do complete this lesson virtually due to social distancing or might need to be able to switch to virtual in the future, please scroll down and see what resources I have created for you to stay a head of this wacky world we are living in. 

If you are a parent and would like to add computer education to your list of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) please scroll down and see what virtual activities you can get for your own home! 

Activity:

A small set of activities that review air, water, earth, and fire.

 

Supplies:

  1. Balloons
  2. Empty water bottle
  3. A small sharp object (safety pin or thumbtack)
  4. Water
  5. Dirt Samples (or access to the outside)

Air:

Air can be a concept that is hard for students to understand. I mean, it’s invisible, so how do we show them an invisible thing? Let’s show air by blowing up a balloon inside of water bottle. Place the balloon into the water bottle like this:

Now try to blow it up, doesn’t work very well, does it?

What happens we poke a small hole in the bottom of the bottle?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water:

The most crucial element for ALL life. Students should be familiar with water already. This is a good time for a water break and make sure we stay hydrated.

Earth:

Earth is all the organic and inorganic parts of the planet, including dirt, leaves, rocks, sand, and more. Have your student, and you take a walk outside and see if you can find any dirt. If you have a garden (or potted plants), have the students check the difference between the dirt in the ground and the soil by the plants. If you don’t want to go outside, feel free to go and collect samples of different types of earth to display during this lesson.

Fire:

Fire needs three things to exist: heat, oxygen, and fuel, take away any of these, and the fire cannot exist anymore. Now there is no way to show fire in a classroom safely, but we can talk about fire safety. This would be an excellent time to remind students of what to do in a fire, your emergency fire safety precautions, and what to do if you are ever in an area where there is a fire. Remember, stop, drop, and roll. Have students get up and show you their stop, drop, and roll technique.

DISTANCE LEARNING????

No Problem!! This activity is available on Teachers Pay Teachers. Instead of the activity we read a quick blurb on each element and write about our favorite one! All on google slides! The best part about this is it a two for one deal with the last lesson I put up You can find not only these lessons but all lessons in my store. This way if you are jumping back and forth between in-person learning and socially distant learning you can feel confident knowing you are not going to have to change your entire unit around or scramble to find materials and ideas. 

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